Owner

Current status

All the guts have been rewritten and the UI for interesting pieces are in place. We just need a lot of testing to make sure we haven't regressed any areas.

Detailed Description

Anaconda currently prompts for where you wish to install from in the initial first stage "loader" of the installation process. This is used both to locate the second stage of the installer as well as to set up where to get packages from. Due to space constraints within the loader, this largely limits how you can do your install.

The goal is to instead move to using the source selection in the loader for just determining where to find the second stage. The source of packages can then be entirely done in the second stage. This will allow us to:

Have greater flexibility in install methods

More easily support adding additional repos at install time for upgrades

Support HTTPS for access packages from a secured web site

Support the use of proxies to access packages

Support the use of mirror lists to access packages

A secondary goal, although perhaps not for Fedora 9, will be to allow the live CD installer to choose between installing the live image and from accessing and installing from the primary repository source with custom package selections.

Also, this will involve de-emphasizing the use of the boot.iso or bootdisk.img for starting the installation procedure and instead pointing people to what is currently titled the rescue.iso. This iso is also usable for starting an installation and we will be making that more prominent with this feature.

Benefit to Fedora

Improved installation experience

Scope

All of the changes for this are limited to the installer (anaconda) and the installation documentation

Test Plan

Make sure all current methods of installing work.

Ensure that DVD installs auto-detect the DVD source of packages

Contingency Plan

If things aren't working, we won't merge the changes. Nothing will be merged until we're at least largely working.